


Angels

by Leanders



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Crimes & Criminals, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Government, Heavy Angst, Heavy topics, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Mild Smut, Minor Character Death, Not so happy ending, Read at your own discretion, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9548318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leanders/pseuds/Leanders
Summary: "He liked to imagine just that: eidolons and gods and deities and any sort of higher power that was in his plane of existence with him, or maybe that resided in another. Thoughts like those tormented his mind so often that Tobio truly did begin to believe that such things could exist somewhere."





	

**Author's Note:**

> massive thanks to my favorite human ever, the amazing [BaklavaBalaclava](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BaklavaBalaclava/pseuds/BaklavaBalaclava) for editing this even after I lied and told her I wasn't writing at all and surprised her with this 6000 word shitwad. surprise.

What was a family?

Kageyama Tobio didn’t have that.

To be honest, he couldn’t put a proper definition to the word.

He’d lost his brother at a mere five years of age to capital punishment. The prefecture of Miyagi had a permanent martial law system that had taken his innocent sibling and made a brutal example out of him, starving and torturing the young boy to his death on display in the district’s town square. Because his brother had tried to steal medicine for his father from one of the labs, he’d faced the worst the punishment the government could serve up. No one was dumb enough to commit any act against the government, and if they were, they weren’t caught. The few that were traced back to and found guilty suffered the same fate as Tobio’s brother.

At seven, his father succumbed to a permanent sleep. After battling an unknown sickness for years, his body finally gave out. Tobio stood by his side as he watched his father’s stormy eyes drain of life, stared as they went irreversibly dull. His father’s years of illness robbed him of his ability to work, and the already poor family was brought to the brink of broke. They could barely afford food, much less his father’s medicine. It was then that Tobio got his first taste of a crime; petty theft of produce from a small shop. After his father’s death, it became a regular pastime. 

At ten, Tobio’s grandmother was whisked away from him. That night, Tobio had sung her a lullaby to get her to sleep, but the song had worked too well, and it lulled her into the same nap that his father had been; the one she wouldn’t wake up from. He watched her take her last breath, was the last person to see those glowing blue eyes while they were bright and lively. Soon after, he upped his crimes, taking the escapades to a level that now violated laws serious enough to get him in trouble with the government. His grief and anguish kept him from worrying about the looming fear of getting caught; if temporary relief from his own mind was offered to him in the form of vandalism or theft, he would always jump at the opportunity.

At thirteen, his mother took her own life. All of the grief of her dissipating family was mounting her shoulders more and more, and she began to rot away before Tobio’s eyes. He returned home one day to find her body suspended in the air lifelessly, a rope tangled around her neck in a death grip. He began experimenting with explosives then, homemade and bought through street connections that Tobio had developed through his years of crime.

At fifteen, Tobio’s only remaining family member was stolen from him. After his mother’s death, he took an oath to protect his one-year-older sister with his life. That plan was successful up until that point, when he was nearly caught in one of his riskier break-ins; one where he’d infiltrated a military training base and left multiple sticky bombs behind for the soldiers to find in the morning. He had no time to retrace his steps, to clean up any of the mistakes he left behind, but was lucky that at least some of the bombs had detonated. The next day, soldiers showed up at his door.

He didn’t have time to stop her. She claimed it had been her and willingly gave herself up to the soldiers while Tobio was left shouting after her. She followed the same fate as Tobio’s brother; tortured in the public’s eye and made an example out of. He couldn’t save her from the city square, from the countless military forces surrounding her body, from the many, many cameras capturing her rapidly declining health.

It was a week after she’d been on display that she finally fell. Her body sagged against the pole her hands had been bound, her skin painfully blistered from the constant exposure to sunlight. Whoops and hollers from the watching crowd sounded as she was declared dead, and rounds of bullets were shot into the air from nearby soldiers.

At sixteen, Tobio had no family. He’d lived a life of increasingly serious criminalism, and since his sister’s death, had embraced the lifestyle fully. He wasn’t interested in greed or personal gain from his actions, but instead wreaking havoc on the government. If he could cause trouble for the tyranny that plagued the prefecture and make them look frazzled in front of their people, then he had succeeded. Killing people was also not his forte. Soldiers or civilians he avoided injuring while he worked. No one deserved to suffer as he had.

During this time, Tobio had also espoused a dangerous hobby for exploring his imagination.

He wondered if maybe there was a world somewhere else where humans weren’t greedy, or maybe somewhere where they didn’t exist at all. Perhaps there was a place where people lived in complete and utter peace. It could be that no one was below anyone else, and war did not create clearly divided sides, and families could never be separated, and crime was not copiously existent, and loss was not an issue, and disease plagued no one, and starvation robbed not a single person of life, and maybe no one would have to be alone, and… Were any of those scenarios possible?

These ideas… this dreaming was why he forced his legs to trudge forward. Optimism was the only real thing that motivated him to continue inhaling and exhaling. His deeply rooted false hope was the science behind why his heart was still beating. His mind had been damaged by the constant loss, the perpetual grief and anguish that he always found himself him. His body had been marred through his years on the streets, stained with scars of all varieties of light reds and pinks. His soul had been tainted so heavily by his sins that there was no one left to save him, not an eidolon in any realm powerful enough to declare him a pure being.

He liked to imagine just that: eidolons and gods and deities and any sort of higher power that was in his plane of existence with him, or maybe that resided in another. Thoughts like those tormented his mind so often that Tobio truly did begin to believe that such things could exist somewhere.

There was one day that the ravenette stood on a high rise building — one abandoned for so long that it was barely standing. Half of the cement walls were crumbling, windows were smashed or missing altogether, and the building’s rusty metal skeleton was exposed in multiple places. Tobio stood on what was once a balcony, now a cement ledge hanging over the sidewalk below, and looked up at the sky above him. The day before, he’d mounted explosives to the engines of three government aircrafts and if he’d calculated correctly, they’d be blowing up in air in the following half hour.

A soft voice sounded from behind him, a melodic tone that he turned around immediately to. There stood a small body that he towered over, a boy around his age with the brightest orange hair he’d ever laid his eyes on. The tattered and dirt-caked clothes he wore juxtaposed his fiery hair and bright, lively eyes.

The small boy introduced himself as Shouyou, and told Tobio that he decided to come up when he saw how lonely he had looked. He then invited Tobio to keep him company for a while, which confused and intrigued Tobio. There was something in the smooth intonation of Shouyou’s voice that caused him to set his caution aside long enough to investigate the suspicious character before him.

As it turned out, there really was very little that came out of scrutinizing Shouyou. The redhead eagerly gave an insight into his life, gushing about life-altering events and minute details all the same, as if everything that had ever happened was important. The larger male was closed off, cold, and didn’t offer any information about himself to Shouyou. This didn’t seem to bother the ginger, as it meant that Tobio couldn’t do much more than listen. Upon interruption of the smaller male’s speech, Tobio’s dispute would quickly be dismissed and settled, and Shouyou would continue blabbering in the same sweet tone.

Despite Tobio’s initial alarms going off about Shouyou’s sketchy entrance, he found that the boy’s warmth sedated every red flag that was raised. He found out that Shouyou had joined him atop the crumbling building because he thought that Tobio had the intention of jumping from the five story building, which made the taller boy chuckle coldly. Shouyou resorted back to his original claim, objecting that the older male (which Tobio had found out after Shouyou had offhandedly mentioned his birthday) looked lonely, which made Tobio chortle again.

The minutes stretched into hours, and the duo revelled in each other’s company. Tobio’s cold, heartless facade was slowly wearing down to Shouyou’s million dollar smile, his warm guffaw. Never had Tobio been exposed to such a bright person that was overflowing with joy, and such a brilliant emission of life effortlessly crumbled the emotional wall that Tobio had built up all of his life. Shouyou admitted that he didn’t have anywhere to go that evening, and Tobio realized that he, too, had nowhere to be.

Later that night, after both males decided to have a sleepover in the top of that practically disintegrating building, Tobio realized that he had missed the explosion of the aircrafts in the sky. Hovering metal giants in the sky blowing up should’ve been easily noticeable. How could someone have missed it? With Shouyou, Tobio had forgotten that the scene was supposed to occur. It was even more of a wonder that a week later, the pair found themselves in the dark on the top floor of that same building. From there, things progressed until the pair had developed a daily routine, and from there, life became a daily adventure for the two.

Tobio naturally got up at dawn, which was perfect since Shouyou always slept late. He had plenty of time to go into town and swipe bread, cheeses, and fruits from vendors to bring back for the smaller male. It was during these runs that he tried to clear his mind.

He often wondered what he was doing, how Shouyou had managed to keep him grounded with him, why he was staying with the constantly bungling child, and if he would be able to leave. These thoughts and growing resolves were destroyed as soon as he would return back to that same collapsing building, where he was forced to rouse the sleeping Shouyou.

His thin, brown eyebrows would knit temporarily as he squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to open them. When one eyelid slid far enough open, the familiar hazel gemstone would look around dazedly, still shining through the groggy haze of sleep. To avoid his eyes being barraged by sunlight, Shouyou would always bat his eyes repeatedly, his long lashes fluttering as his surroundings came into focus.

The routine was not something Tobio would get tired of. Kneeling over his counterpart’s smaller body as he woke up, seeing the soft contours of Shouyou’s face move as he became alert, watching as the signature features brightened as he awakened. Weeks went by, and the same ritual still left him nearly breathless.

Over time, Tobio found his focus on the world outside of Shouyou slipping away. His life of crime was over; he knew that his mind was too muddled with thoughts of the five foot two ginger to be good enough to keep up appearances with the government. His handiwork would be far too messy, his heart wouldn’t be in his work, his head would be gone elsewhere (probably filled with thoughts of his sunshine child). He didn’t miss the lifestyle, oddly enough. Tobio lost part of himself when he dropped crime, but Shouyou immediately filled that and every other gap in Tobio with ease. Nothing was missing. 

Tobio decided that there was absolutely no chance in hell that he would introduce Shouyou to the criminalist lifestyle he hosted previously. It turned out that he didn’t need to. Shouyou huddled close to Tobio one night—a comfortable position the two had grown used to—and told him that he knew.

Shouyou admitted to knowing about Tobio’s behavior towards the government — about the hatred he allowed to flourish beneath his skin. He knew. And he said he understood, above all things. 

Two months later, Tobio found himself in an alley late at night, panting heavily as Shouyou squirmed above him. The smaller boy’s hips ground against his own, and Tobio stifled a moan as he dug his fingers into the soft flesh of the redhead’s torso. The taller male claimed Shouyou’s lips hungrily, and Shouyou retaliated by snaking his arms around Tobio, his hands settling into his raven hair to give experimental yanks.

Tobio snatched Shouyou’s lips in a heated kiss, turning the usually pink skin a flushed red. The heated kiss brought on an onslaught of deepening kisses, escalating into growls of eagerness for skin on skin contact.

With a particularly rough shove, Shouyou was on the ground with Tobio looming over him, hands hungrily devouring any exposed flesh that the ginger had left revealed. From there on, memories blurred into a euphoric haze of sweat and sex.

In the days following the event, Tobio came to the realization that he had found a new family. He and Shouyou were their own family.

Tobio began to consider his beliefs again. Retrospectively, he had been graced with the sudden presence of Shouyou. That one day, the lively spirit appeared behind him radiating all but actual sunlight. Perhaps he was just that: a god or a spirit of some sort, and the one that controlled the sun.

No, not quite. Gods were big and powerful, and Shouyou wasn’t quite that. He was closer to an angel. He didn’t have a halo or wings, or any snow white heavenly outfit or whatever, but he did carry a glow with him. It was a veil of purity and cleanness, and… well,  _ innocence _ .

Tobio had turned this thought over and over in his head; analyzed it forwards, backwards, and upside down. One night, said male proposed the idea to his counterpart. Shouyou had become giddy at the idea, giggling and blushing like the child he was. Once his moment of laughter subsided, Shouyou confirmed that he was indeed an angel, but not the typical one. He couldn’t live forever or grant wishes, couldn’t get into heaven or see whatever ‘god’ angels worked for.

Shouyou could, however, confidently provide his presence by Tobio’s side for his lifetime, and even after that. Once he passed and became a star in the sky, he’d be there with Tobio. Shouyou would be a guardian angel incarnated. A five foot two, ginger, fifteen year old guardian angel.

And for whatever reason, Tobio believed him.

Yes, Tobio had seen just about every tragedy that life could conjure up. And yes, he had first handedly witnessed the death of every person he had ever built any sort of affinity for, suffered in affliction for every day after. Yet, he knew the words Shouyou spoke were true. He knew that what he said was the final say, and was factual.

That night, nearly half a year after they had first met, Tobio didn’t allow himself to succumb to sleep. He revelled in the feeling of Shouyou’s small, warm figure in his arms. He appreciated the small being before him for everything that he was.

That feeling carried on for the next year. During that time, Tobio changed. Not of his own free will, mind you. With Shouyou radiating literal rays of the sun at all times of day, he couldn’t do much but change. His life as a felon became nothing more than an ended chapter of a book. Shouyou had sauntered into Tobio’s life and leavened him for the better.

Living was beautiful. The patches of grass (despite being few and far between in the pollution-laden prefecture that was Miyagi) were greener. The sun shone brighter every day. More bypassers in the streets smiled. Life was amazing and beautiful and so utterly  _ worth it  _ and well… life was fleeting.

Every day seemed to be an adventure of its own, and nothing ever seemed forgettable. Whether it was snatching food, strolling through the town square, or even just sitting side by side, everything that happened with Shouyou seemed monumental. Every event was a phenomenon that history should have treasured. Every waking moment in the angel’s presence should’ve been part of the living legend that was the young boy.

One day in specific was a moment worth valuing over so many others. It was in a poor district where Shouyou and Tobio commonly visited. There, the two could snag a house that hadn’t seen human life for months. If they were lucky, there’d be a gas stove that had yet to be cut off, or maybe even a small heater or a couple of lights that still worked.

Instead of finding lodgings for the day, the two had decided on trekking through the district. There wasn’t much to see there to any other person, but there was beauty beyond the grime and the garbage that coated the area. A small pond could be found toward the edge of the district.

Tobio and Shouyou found themselves sitting side by side in the setting evening sun, basking in the warm glow of the rays. Shouyou was nearly asleep, his body relaxed against Tobio’s in his nearly asleep state.

“Hey, Shouyou,” Tobio mused quietly. In turn, Shouyou’s eyebrows knitted and he nuzzled into the larger boy’s chest with his head. “You know that I love you, right?” Tobio said suddenly, actually surprising himself with the bold statement.

Shouyou’s lips parted in a smile that Tobio felt against his chest. “I know. And you know I love you too, right?” A small silence fell as Tobio felt his chest explode in warmth, his gut doing somersaults.

“Yeah… I… I do.”

“Good. If you never knew that I loved you, Kageyama Tobio, I would die a sad and painful death,” Shouyou mused in a quiet voice, his body still relaxed against his lover’s larger side.

“I… Yeah, me too. Hinata Shouyou, you’ll be the first person I love and protect… I’ll do it this time, okay?” Tobio said, more to himself than to the male melting into his side.

“Shush, Tobio. I already know you will… Boke…” The smallest snort was emitted from Shouyou at his own insult, and the redhead let out a small sigh and added, “Now, let me sleep. Wake me up when we need to go in.”

Tobio looked down in a loving gaze at the male resting on him. If he listened closely, he thought he could hear Shouyou’s heartbeat. If he focused intently, this moment would be engraved in his mind forever. If he prayed hard enough, this moment wouldn’t end.

Then, the grass was even greener, if at all possible. For the first time in so long for Tobio, breathing was so easy, and his legs no longer felt like lead that he had to push forward every step, and days were no longer hours upon hours of the same blurry, boring, painfully dreary hues, and his heart beat for a reason, and life had a purpose and it was all so completely perfect, so unimaginably perfect!

And then it wasn’t.

Another usual day came. A day that was like any other, really. Tobio and Shouyou decided to go into the heart of the city for a shopping trip for food and maybe, if the situation presented itself, some desperately needed clothing items.

The streets seemed busier that day, but the pair made the assumption that the city was bustling for some meaningless new sale for what have you. But, that wasn’t it. There was a particular buzz in the air that Tobio knew was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Shouyou claimed not to know of this tension in the air that Tobio sensed, claiming he had a sixth sense and that he was just being paranoid.

So, they continued on. One moment, the crowds of pedestrians scurrying on with their daily actions were boisterous and carefree. The next moment, they weren’t.

Screams erupted from somewhere ahead of the two in the town square, followed by a deafening explosion and the ground beneath everyone’s feet quaking, throwing Tobio’s body roughly into the ground. In the corner of his vision, it had seemed that every other pedestrian had been slammed to the ground as well.

As soon as Tobio felt his brain trying to function again, a second eruption sounded, this one louder and even more powerful than the last. The male could feel the ground beneath him rumble painfully against his chest.

Moments later, a third explosion sounded. This one was the closest of all, and Tobio could immediately feel a gust of dirt hit his face, clogging his nose and stinging his eyes. He could hear nothing but ringing, and there was a layer of dust that he could feel settling over his body, grainy and dry.

Tobio was rising off of the pavement in a daze, wondering what had happened and how he’d gotten there when he saw through blurring shades of neutrals, eyes landing on the vivid orange tufts of hair rising above him. It was Shouyou already standing again, his center of balance clearly off as he wobbled. In Tobio’s vision, he could see one and half Shouyous stumbling along.

“Shouyou!” Tobio’s voice called out, shrill and panicked. There was a cloud around them, engulfing them. The ex-criminal knew the feeling all too well; it was dusty, dry debris. That sixth sense Shouyou had accused him off had been correct. He sensed danger in the air, that anticipation that buzzed when he knew an attack was coming. He hadn’t felt like since he last committed a crime, which felt like a lifetime so distant from now.

“I’m going to see if anyone’s hurt! Tobio, stay back,” Shouyou yelled as he took off half  running half stumbling deeper into the thick cloud of dust. He realized slowly that the redhead was going to where he heard screaming, of which had also just become apparent. There was a lot of screaming.

Painfully, Tobio’s body rose. Every limb felt like lead and his head pounded incessantly. Upon standing, his vision went black around the edges, darkness clawing its way over his vision as though it were a monster determined to obstruct his view. Not that easily would he be taken down.

Tobio looked ahead of his to see his Shouyou charging into the chaos-stricken square, an area now laden with cries of confusion and fear. It was odd.

His angel, so small and innocent and frail, going into an absolute war zone ahead of him, into an overwhelming fog of smoke and dust. Tobio marveled at the juxtaposition. And then the irony. He was the criminal, not Shouyou. He should be the one running head on into danger, not… Not Shouyou.

He sprinted forward after Shouyou, whose body was now covered in gray dust ahead of him. Tobio was spurred into action by the thought of his counterpart being in the way of danger. The darkness edging around his vision threatened to intensify, but he fought it as he pushed his body forward. It was so,  _ so  _ hard.

Ahead of him, Shouyou’s body was getting farther and farther out of reach, the thin figure topped with flaming orange hair fading as Shouyou jogged determinedly forward. It was as if there was some form of invisible tar that Tobio was trying to push himself through. He was shoving through the sludge so hard, yanking against whatever force was holding him back. 

It sounded then.

Another deafening boom, like thunder that had clapped loud enough to leave the entire Earth void of hearing. This one explosion caused the already fading vision of Shouyou’s hair ahead of him to vanish entirely by another thick cloud of dust engulfing Shouyou’s body in one swift wave. The orange hair that had been guiding Tobio had been whacked out of existence. Like the light in the dark, it was gone.

Tobio felt his body slam into the ground violently, the impact of the explosion actually hitting him. This bomb was exponentially stronger than the previous detonations. Even so, his eyes stayed where Shouyou once was, and he felt himself cry out in complete and utter pain, but not at the pain of fresh debris blinding him and barraging his body, but at the seeming finality of the disappearance of Shouyou. He couldn’t hear his cries, nor could he feel them being ripped from his throat, but he was sure that they were there.

He clawed forward, closer and closer to where he saw last saw his lover’s figure. There was dust piling on the ground like sand beneath his palms, but he couldn’t feel the texture of the grains. He couldn’t feel anything but the shredding in his chest, the feeling of total despair. 

Forward, he pushed himself. His hand hit something that wasn’t dirt. It was too soft, too small and firm and it didn’t budge the way debris would when he knocked it aside. His hand wrapped around it.

It was small, and slightly warm. There was dust sticking to it with an adhesive, which he found when he moved his hand was crimson. Scraping away at the layer of gray dirt, he found more sticky crimson, and slowly it came to him that this was an arm. An unmoving one.

His hands scrambled to feel all of the arm, all of the shoulder until he found himself holding a small face. And then he saw it.

The familiar features now caked in layers of gray. The once vibrant hair with slate-colored dust clinging to it, threatening to conceal the life radiating from below it. At the base of the scalp was a deep red liquid flowing thickly through the roots of hair, pooling on the ground beneath the skull. This was Shouyou.

“Shouyou!” he screamed. He screamed it over and over, shook the small face gently until he saw those relaxed eyebrows knit slightly, his eyes slowly but surely opening. They cracked open, and there were those same glowing brown orbs, just like they had always been. This was how it always was when Shouyou woke up, a refreshing sight full of liveliness and love, but this scene was no longer comforting.

He saw Shouyou’s mouth move in three syllables, heard the weak voice mutter, “Tobio.”

“You’re okay! Shouyou, come on! We have to get you up, okay? Come on!” Tobio screamed, his voice scratching painfully as he bent to hoist up the ginger.

“No,” came a weak protest, one short of breath and lacking liveliness.

“What are you saying?! Shouyou, come on, work with me!” Again, Tobio tried to slip his arm around the smaller male.

“It’s over,” Shouyou whispered, his voice heavy with the finality of the statement.

“Shut up, Shouyou! Stop speaking like that and help me, god dammit!” Tobio growled the words as he tried to get his hand beneath Shouyou’s head, only to feel a copious amount of warm liquid drench his palm. He pulled away to find his entire hand coated in a layer of shining, bright red blood. Everything in Tobio sunk painfully.

“Look at me… To…” Shouyou’s voice faded at the name of his beloved.

Tobio complied reluctantly, his arms still ready to hoist the small body up and away, but he  made eye contact with those lovely eyes, shining and sparkling like gems. They were so lively, so warm, such a stark contrast from the bleak scene around them. They put him in a trance, and he was grounded suddenly. “You’ll be okay…” Shouyou muttered, the smallest of smiles gracing his features. His once pink lips were cracked and dry, coated thickly with grime.

“Shouyou, you’re okay, you’ll be okay,” Tobio coaxed as he hunched over the weak body of his lover, his entire body screaming at him to yank Shouyou up and carry him to help, wherever that may be, but he couldn’t move.

“We’ll be together again someday. You know... in heaven or wherever. I’ll be waiting for you somewhere... okay?” Shouyou said slowly, every word taking a toll on him physically. 

“You’ll be…” Tobio looked at his blood-covered hand, felt that sinking feeling again. He realized that there wasn’t anything he could do. Never had he felt such a crushing despair that tore him into bits, ripped every atom of his being in half, and in half again. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me, Shouyou...” Tobio whispered out, his voice breaking. His vision was blurring, his eyes filling with tears that stung.

“Look,” Shouyou said again, his arm shaking from the sheer amount of effort that it took as he attempted to raise his hand to Tobio’s face. Tobio’s much larger hand wrapped around the smaller one, helping it to his cheek, where he held the small palm.

“I love you, Kageyama Tobio,” Shouyou said, his eyes watering slightly as the small smile grew. He radiated feeble joy; something so pure yet so painful to be a witness of.

“No…” Tobio said as he shook his head slightly, still holding Shouyou’s palm to his cheek. “You can’t… you promised me…”

“It’s temporary… we’ll be together again… I’ll be in the stars…” Each word took longer to say, more energy to push out of Shouyou’s collapsing lungs. Shouyou visibly mustered every ounce of energy left in him to push out the last three words.

“I love you.”

One final breath, and Shouyou’s eyes closed. His smile faded, and the muscles in his face released their tension slowly, his features becoming permanently relaxed. The hand on Tobio’s cheek slipped and fell onto Shouyou’s chest, not moving again.

“No… No… Nononono, Shouyou, get up! You can’t go, too! Not you, too! Shouyou!  _ Shouyou! _ ”

It was quiet. Too quiet. The screams of the countless injured or helpless people were nothing in this silence.

“No, no… Shouyou, no!”

Tobio felt his body collapse onto Shouyou’s, his head resting on a chest that lacked a heartbeat. He grabbed onto whatever he could, whatever his hands would feel of Shouyou’s thin shirt or exposed arms.

_ “Shouyou!” _

Tobio — for this first time in so many months, years even — broke down. So heavily and so fully, he was broken; he was gone.

It had been months, maybe even a year — who knows? There was no warmth after that day, no energy being radiated from anywhere… from anything. That one source of life in its purest form had been the only one in this dull plane of existence, the only incarnation of the sun itself… it had gone out. Like a candle, snuffed out so suddenly and so easily. Only this was not a candle that could not be relit. This was it.

Tobio trudged forward in the world yet again. Sure, the world had looked dark after the slow perish of his bloodline, but in contrast to what the world was now, that time was nothing but a joke.

Daily, Tobio thought about Shouyou being his angel. He had said so long ago that he was not able to live forever or grant wishes, but he did say that he would be able to watch over Tobio once he passed and became one of the many stars in the sky. He had said that so long ago, when they were still together and in each other’s arms, and he had said it as he took his final breaths.

Tobio turned the words over in his head time after time. Every soul that passed from this world to the next, and every body that was abandoned by its host… they were all up in the sky, too. His family was there. His mother, father, brother, and sister. They were all right there as celestial spirits watching over him. They always had been.

Every night, Tobio stared up at the sky. Be it atop that five story building that he met Shouyou or from one of the many houses they took lodgings in over their time together, and sometimes in that area right by the pond that both of them had been so fond of… He always choose a place that he and Shouyou had been while he digested the overwhelmingly large sight of the night sky above him.

There was one star in specific that always caught Tobio’s attention when he would stare for hours up at the mesmerizing sky. It was the only star that was orange, contrasting from the blue or white or yellow shades of all of the other stars.

Tobio knew that it was Shouyou.

Some nights that star would glow deep hues of reds, while other nights it returned to regular or pale orange. Tobio liked to imagine that those were the nights where the star was pulsating a deep red glow was when Shouyou was his happiest. He could hear the melodic laughter being emitted from somewhere so close yet so far, a sound so light and airy and beautiful despite being something that only Tobio could hear.

The star was also the corner of five stars that made an outline of a person. The person had on a belt and had two legs and two arms, one arm raised straight in front of him and the other pointed up into the air. Tobio wondered how Shouyou had realigned the stars to create that perfect of a display.

One early morning, Tobio was watching the stars as they had just begun to fade. The sun had barely started its ascent into the sky, but Tobio could already see the rays of sunlight threatening to swallow the land before them.

Tobio found himself constantly wondering when it would be his time to go up to the stars and join everyone else. He prayed it was soon, and he prayed that Shouyou would be waiting with open arms. He also wondered if his family would still be there. Did anyone even remember him?

Shouyou would, surely. He imagined that Shouyou would have a grin from ear to ear, his glowing brown eyes lighting up in a way that never failed to put Tobio in a trance. The redhead would look as bright as ever, with vibrant hair and his usual flawless skin. He’d laugh that saintly laugh and start blabbering about the color of a flower he had seen that day or the way that a door had made a creaking sound when he shut it or talk about some minute detail and turn it into a theatrical play the way he always did.

Surely he would. Surely he would be right there waiting for him.

Tobio’s wrist jerked in one swift motion and he felt the pinch of his skin breaking. Looking down, the thin glass had gone nearly halfway through his wrist. It had ruptured every major vein in his wrist, splitting them and cutting off blood flow entirely. He watched as the blood flowed freely from his hand, felt it when it dripped abundantly onto his leg.

He looked back up at the sky, straight at the star that he knew was Shouyou. It was glowing the deepest shade of red he had ever seen it. Relaxing back into the grass patch that overlooked the pond in the same place he and Shouyou had visited so often, Tobio felt himself going numb, his vision becoming hazy as he slipped away.

He smiled at the brilliant star above him.

“I’m coming, Shouyou,” he whispered.

Tobio closed his eyes and succumbed to the darkness that had been creeping up on him.

_ I’m coming. _

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! tell me what you thought by leaving me a kudos or dropping some comments below! hope you enjoyed and see you all in the next one!!
> 
> minor note: for anyone unaware of the references to astronomy made, Shouyou as a star was the astounding Betelguese, which is the right shoulder of the constellation Orion... sorry if anyone didn't get that lmao i tried whoops sorry


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